Jesse Ventura: Not A Scumbag (For The Reasons You Think)

Yesterday Jesse Ventura won a defamation lawsuit against the estate of a dead American hero, sniper Chris Kyle who is said to have taken out more terrorists and insurgents than any other soldier out there. The man also claimed in a book that Ventura had said the SEALS, of which Kyle was a member, deserved to “lose a few guys” and that Kyle punched him out for it. A jury just said that never happened, and the burden of proof for them to make that conclusion is intense. In so many words, Ventura’s lawyer had to prove to that jury that there was literally no way on earth that altercation took place. And that’s what happened. So, effectively, you can state that Kyle lied in his book and Ventura, a Naval officer himself who served during Vietnam for 6 years but didn’t see active duty, never suggested SEALS deserved to lose a few.

And today Jesse Ventura is the most hated man in America.

Does this look like a scumbag to you?

The hate stems from the fact that Kyle was murdered in February of 2013 and Ventura opted to substitute the man’s wife into the lawsuit as dependent, arguing it would be unjust for his estate to be further enriched by Kyle’s lie. And here is where Ventura the scumbag starts to come into play but maybe won’t. The problem is, it’s still very early.

No one likes the idea that super marksman SEAL Chris Kyle, the greatest sniper in our military history, was a liar. But this trial has legally proven he was. There were enough witnesses who came forward and said that this event never occurred to convince a jury that Kyle lied. So guess what? The hero had flaws, just like everyone. We like our stories to have black and white characters, very one dimensional and easy to understand. It’s hard to reconcile the idea of a war hero also maybe being an asshole. But look at it this way – Jesse Ventura was a very progressive politician who arguably did some good for Minnesota and voiced a number of controversial yet admirable positions on everything from gay marriage to water boarding, and it looks like he’s an asshole, too. If you’re a teen girl who needs an analogy, just think of how dreamy Justin Bieber is and how he does all that charity work, yet apparently also likes to drive drunk and piss in mop buckets. Humans are diverse, you see, and can do both good and bad things.

Pure class.

The fact that Ventura sued the man’s widow is what’s currently killing everyone – what kind of bastard does that? Well, the kind who was right. If he’d dropped the suit, then in time there would have been lingering doubt until it faded away and it would become, one day, and obscure “fact” that Jesse Ventura did this thing. But if it was a lie, and turns out it was, then he had every right to set the record straight and the fact that Kyle died sucks hard for any number of reasons, but shouldn’t be held against Jesse Ventura. If someone accuses you of being a pedophile, are you just going to accept that crap if your accuser happens to die a year later? Oh well, he’s dead now, guess I have to start hanging out in parks in a long coat. Hell no.

Ventura had every right and should have, even needed to, continue this lawsuit. And now that he won, he doesn’t need to collect a dime and that’s where we’ll decide what kind of scumbag he is. He started this lawsuit because the accusations hurt his image and his career, they made him look like (go on, guess…) a scumbag. Now he has proven in a court of law he was not the scumbag Chris Kyle said he was and he’s standing on the precipice of inheriting nearly $2 million from the dead man’s family. This is the time when Jesse the Body can man up and state publicly he’s vindicated, he’s a Navy man who would never speak ill of his fellow soldiers, and he’s declining any enrichment at a cost to this man’s family, who did not wrong him. Chris Kyle told a lie, for whatever reason, and now that lie has been publicly corrected. And now we can find out if Jesse Ventura is a scumbag, if he takes that money or not. But until then, he’s not the scumbag everyone thinks he is. He’s a guy who did the right thing, and something any one of us would do in the same situation.

Of course if you want to get into him being a 9/11 Truther and his conspiracy theories, well, that's another article...now let's all get back to hating Donald Trump, like normal people.